Assault on Sunrise (The Extra Trilogy) by Michael Shea Page A

darker intent, even a faint gleam of homicide.
    *   *   *
    Racquetball made such a wonderful racket. While they played, Razz and Mark’s talk was as staccato as their hotly contested game.
    “Moonlight! That’s gonna be bitchin!”
    “Backlight the shoot-rafts against the moon!”
    “All silhouettes!”
    They swatted logistics back and forth in the echoing court. They’d shoot from payrafts, these the most agile anti-gravs, and would have a high-alt modification, a major refrigeration unit added for that output.
    They’d been of two minds about how much their “pirate” fleet should interact with Margolian’s fleet. Mark had been for staying aloof from them, Razz for swooping down to get close-ups of them at work. But now, as they sat in the sauna, Mark conceded. “They’re our cast, after all,” he said abruptly into the silence. “They’re part of our cast, that Panoply crew. You’re right. We have to dive to close-ups. Those rafters, after all, will be our heroes and demons.”
    “Now you’re talking. We can get some comedy going! We can swoop down and hang just off their bows, and we can remonstrate, upbraid them—all in fun, right?”
    “Exactly! And some straight stuff too! Capture some of their conflict maybe, their doubts.”
    “You see it now, don’t you—I knew you would. Irresistible stuff!”
    “Absolutely. And listen: your name goes first. I brook no denial.” And, after a beat, Mark added, “From the heart, Homes. Mos def!”
    And they both erupted in wild laughter, knowing they had it now, that they were going to get it just right. As long as they had even, worst-case scenario, bootleg footage, they were going to make it into vid history.

 
    XII
    THE MONSTER’S FLESH
     
    Ming rode her Harley into the hills behind Abel and Christy for some battle practice. Cherokee, their motor-magician and official hog-whisperer, was at the shop resurrecting—as only he could do—Abel’s Indian, a bellowing dinosaur of a bike that Cherokee openly coveted for his own.
    “This look good, guys?” Abel asked them. His ATV towed a two-wheel trailer of empty wooden wine kegs. Below them stretched gentle slopes of hollows and hillocks to give the rolling kegs an erratic pattern.
    “Set ’em loose,” said Ming.
    Abel kicked open the tailgate latch and the kegs started tumbling and jouncing downhill. Gunning their bikes, Ming and Christy zigzagged after them.
    They fired their pumps one-armed, the butts to their hips, punching double-ought wads through the little juggernauts’ staves, working their slides one-handed. Ming had nailed four by the end of their run.
    “Damn!” cried the guilelessly outspoken Christy, a natural enthusiast for all forms of vehicular insanity. “You’re a rock star! I taught you biking, you gotta teach me rafting, sis!”
    Ming always dealt very crisply and unsentimentally with young Christy—actually they were of an age—but there was something about that “sis” of his that deeply irked her because she found herself liking it.
    “Speak of the devil!” Abel crowed as a raft came dropping down, Trek at the helm. He hung its bows down so he sat almost facing them, easy in its slanted bottom.
    “I love your work! I been watching you make those barrels dance! Hate to interrupt, but would you guys put off maneuvers an’ come to the hangar? Somethin’ big’s cookin we need your help on.”
    The “hangar” being Ike’s Engine Repair, where the fleet—now nine craft—was housed.
    “I’m not flying a raft! No way, no how! I told that bitch that!” Ming surprised herself with this outburst. Had she been arguing mentally with Devlin all along?
    Trek raised a placating palm. “No! She thought—we thought you’d think that. We need you guys to make a run, and it’s a run on wheels we need. This is deep-wraps, guys. It’s I-shit-you-not life and death. Get Cherokee an’ follow me. You’re gonna have to leave by dark.”
    In the back corner of Ike’s